Spy Bill’s security vetting should be of great concern to all South Africans, panel hears

The amended version of the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill (Gilab), also known as the “Spy Bill”, should be of great concern to all South Africans as it provides a wide scope for security vetting, which could invade the privacy of citizens and institutions, according to Heidi Swart, research and journalism coordinator at Intelwatch, and Daily Maverick contributor. 

Speaking during a recent Daily Maverick webinar, Swart was joined by Daily Maverick associate editor Marianne Merten and the executive director at the Campaign for Free Expression, Anton Harber, to discuss the Spy Bill, and how it could interfere with civil society if it is passed by Parliament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bRZFxadig

Security vetting, Swart explained, is an invasive process that gives the country’s intelligence services a free pass to accumulate and examine exclusive information to determine whether or not a person or institution is fit to be trusted with classified material. 

The collected information can include financial data and medical records, and involve the interception of electronic communications and submission to a polygraph test. An organisation or individual who fails to gain security clearance will be denied the right to continue their operations within the country.

According to the initial version of the Spy Bill, people who wanted to establish nongovernmental organisations or religious institutions would have had to undergo security vetting, but criticism from the public and religious sectors led to a revision.

The Bill, however, still features a broad definition of what constitutes a security threat, including “any activity that seeks to harm the advancement and promotion of equality and equitable access to opportunities by all South Africans” and “any activity that seeks to harm the advancement and promotion of peace and harmony and freedom from fear and want for South Africans”.

Swart said that the new draft of the Spy Bill ridiculed the whole point of democracy by permitting civil society’s privacy to be invaded with the introduction of vetting. In other democratic countries such as Britain and the United States, vetting and the requirement for security clearance are limited to government employees and contractors who have been granted access to sensitive state information and systems during their employment contracts. If security clearance isn’t granted, that person can no longer work in a sensitive position. 

Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has defended the possible expansion of vetting, saying it will essentially be employed as a criminal investigative mechanism to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Rica and Gilab – the two surveillance bills before Parliament that should give every freedom-loving South African pause for thought

Merten said that everyone in South Africa should be concerned about the Bill, which is most likely to be passed in Parliament in early 2024 as no party has yet expressed its opposition. 

“Everyone in South Africa should be quite concerned about this Bill. The vetting provisions are a concern very much so. The parliamentary process is under way; it got off the ground a couple of weeks ago and the first things were, ‘What if the SSA [State Security Agency] comes and wants to give us classified information behind closed doors?’,” Merten said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Lawmaking behind closed doors a possibility as new intelligence Bill processed

Merten shared that this kind of behaviour and attitude from parliamentarians, who are supposed to do oversight, is concerning, especially when it comes to law making. She also revealed that the SSA and National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (Nicoc) did not see eye to eye during the drafting of the new Bill.

“The first few red flags are emerging… This Bill was drafted by the SSA. Now it turns out that Nicoc is supposed to be coordinating all intelligence structures across police, defence, security, etc, had actually made proposals to the SSA legislative drafting team and one of the things that started off this morning is the Nicoc delegation saying, ‘Some of the proposals that we have made for this proposal did not quite make it into this draft Bill.’ So, the red flags are going up so there is a disjunct between the two security services and we know historically this has been a problem,” Merten said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Lawmaking behind closed doors a possibility as new intelligence Bill processed

Harber said one of the Bill’s biggest flaws is the poor oversight of mass surveillance, which has the potential to damage journalism and communication privacy for all South Africans, as everyone’s calls could be monitored in the hopes of picking up information that could potentially be a security threat. 

“It will mean a major invasion of everyone’s privacy, but particular groups like journalists will find themselves vulnerable to having their conversations listened to and their sources possibly exposed. As I understand mass surveillance, it means you use technology to pick up key words or phrases that is there in all communications and use them to identify potential security threats … and that’s a major invasion of someone’s privacy and rights,” Harber said.

Harber also talked about the “appalling ignorance” of the government, as the ANC currently appears to support the Bill. Harber said the ANC would most likely get stung by the Bill in the long run.

“It is in the long term with the prospect of us having an unstable society, politically fraudulent society, and it may not be under this government. In fact, one would hope that ANC MPs would realise that at some point they are likely to lose power and then this act is likely to be used against them. So it is the long-term potential for the abuse of the act rather than expecting something to happen tomorrow.” DM